Main menu

Further Workplace Health and Safety bosses will be grilled at the inquest into the Dreamworld disaster today, after a leading inspector admitted he had "no confidence" in the emergency procedures in place on the Thunder River Rapids ride.

Vic 'dudded' by NBN rollout: state govt

Victoria has been "dudded" by the federal government's rollout of the national broadband network, the state government says.

Technology Minister Gordon Rich-Phillips said Victoria had received less than 20 per cent of the program funding for the next three years despite accounting for one quarter of Australia's population.

Mr Rich-Phillips said the rollout plan favoured the Labor-held states of South Australia, Tasmania and ACT, and said the Gillard Government was "funnelling money into these states to prop up struggling Labor administrations".

"Although South Australia has just 7.3 per cent of (the) national population, it is receiving 9.2 per cent of the funding. Tasmania, which represents just 2.3 per cent of population, is receiving 5.9 per cent of the program funding," he said.

Construction of the fibre optic cable section of the $35.9 billion network is to be under way or completed in areas containing 3.5 million homes and businesses in 1500 towns and suburbs across Australia by June 2015.

Mr Rich-Phillips said the plan should include an additional 191,000 Victorian premises in order to reach 24.9 per cent of the total construction.